Seventeen - Prologue

I still get that sense recognition from time to time. That little shiver that makes my spine go gunstock straight and stomach curl into a tight, sour little knot of vomit. I should have won an Academy Award by now for the performance I’ve been doing for the last seven years. Everyone thinks that I’ve gotten along just fine and that I’ve tried to go back to some sort of ‘normal’ life. They couldn’t be more wrong. See, ever since it happened, I’ve just been gritting my teeth and grasping at straws to just… be. To maintain some sort of schedule. If I hadn’t, I probably would be a lot crazier than I already am.1

They still ask about it. Well, not exactly. They hint at it. Using the same line that everyone else does, as though they were reading it off of some sort of script: “You seem to have done so well ever since…” and then, of course, they pause in that awkward way, making sure that it’s okay to actually follow through with what they were going to say. I just want to scream at them “say it! Just get it over with and fucking say it!” 2

But experience has taught me that patience and calm can take a person a long way. I still think about it, as you probably figured that I would. I get that cold shudder of my memory kicking in. I’m human, and things like this shouldn’t be forgotten. Things like this should never be remembered. And considering that the brain is such a considerate organ, it remembers all of the failures and horrible things that happen in a person’s life so that they can remember the feeling and how ghastly the experience was so that they avoid certain things and are able to avoid such things happening again. If they’re lucky anyway. 3

Here’s the cliché: I remember it as if it were yesterday. It only took a matter of seconds. At first, I was the devil-may-care ten year old walking back to my mother’s apartment, carrying a soda that I’d gotten from a vending machine just around the corner on my way home from my aunt’s house. Then, he was grabbing me off of the street and pulling me into the darkness of the nearby alley.4

I screamed so loudly. God… it was a miracle that no one heard me. But living in a city, it’s hard to be heard. Especially when it’s happy hour in one of the lower apartments in the buildings that I had been crammed between. Honestly, I’m not sure which thought is more frightening… the thought of my screaming not being heard because of the music blaring from the party, or the thought that no one had the balls to check it out.5

Had his procedures not been so sickening, I would have commended him for his ability to multi-task. I mean, he was able to stab me while raping me. According to the doctors, it was a miracle I hadn’t died. He’d gotten me right in the side, piercing through two ribs and entering about an inch and a half below my right lung. Luckily, he had twisted the blade downward; had he twisted it up, it would have popped my lung like an over-inflated balloon. He never bothered to cover my mouth; I think my screams were what really got him off. He wanted to hear them echoing off of the alley. At this point, I just wanted to die. How pathetic is that? A ten year old praying for death…6

The one thing I’ll always remember is the smell. I could tell just by the way his greasy and stubbly beard rubbed against the side of his face that it had been a while since he and a shower had been acquainted. But the smell is what proved it. It was a mixture of grease, sweat, blood, alcohol, not all his own brand is my guess. But he was ripe at any rate.7

The only thought that I’ve clung to to this day was that I must have been some special kind of stupid to actually think that I was old enough to make my way back home from my aunt’s house. Some special kind of stupid to allow myself to be dragged into a situation like that. Some special kind of stupid to be too scared to fight back.8

The only sound that he made was a slight gasp when it was all over… the worst sound of my life. After it was all over, he grasped my arm, the knife back in his hand – I’m not even sure it really left his hand in the first place- and twisted me around so that my back was facing him.9

I just focused on trying to play dead.10

It was hard not to make any noise as he carved the number seventeen into my shoulder. But I was able to do it. My throat ached too much to so much as breathe, let alone make any noise. He took his time, trying to make it nice and neat on the pretty little dead – or so he thought – girl that he had just left to bleed out on the cement of the alley.11

Everything hurt. But once I was absolutely sure that he was gone, I lifted myself onto my hands and knees, another raw scream ripping its way from the back of my throat, followed by an abrupt sob. Tears and snot rolled down my face, mixing together, warming my freezing cold face. I couldn’t stand, so instead, I just crawled toward the party closest to me. Everything I touched seemed to be tainted with red on contact; leaving a trail of AB Negative in my wake. I made it into the building, slowly, but surely. My bottom half completely naked and soaked in blood, my top half just wearing the flimsy, sludge and crimson stained jersey I had pulled on that morning.12

I’ll never forget the voice of the angel who saved my life. It rang through the lobby sharply, so sharply in fact, that it made me cringe, whimper and drop to the floor, attempting to curl up into a ball, despite the pain it wreaked on my body. 13

“Jesus Chris, kid… what happened to you?” My angel, my savior… I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t move…14

It hurt.15

“What the fuck?!” Some guy shouted in the distance.16

“Just call an ambulance!” The girl screamed, scooping me up into her arms. I let out another small scream as she wrapped her coat around me and held me close until an ambulance arrived. Well… even after, considering my arms had tightened themselves around her neck in a grip that was almost impossible to detach me. The EMTs let her hold me all the way to the emergency room, which must have been a serious pain in the ass; especially since, all the while, they were treating my stab wound and the seventeen on my shoulder.17

“Don’t worry sweetheart, we’ll get you taken care of as soon as we get you to the hospital.” One of the paramedics told me kindly as she washed the blood and dirt off of the gashes on my body. 18

I must have lost consciousness somewhere on the trip to the hospital, because I don’t remember anything after that. I remember waking up to the sound of an EKG, my nose and the back of my throat felt dry from the oxygen tubes that were threaded behind my ears and into my nose. I choked on the strange sensation of the air squirting out of the tube. My mother sat next to me, her face tear stained and pale. My angel was nowhere to be found… I wanted to thank her…19

I felt… I don’t know… wrong. My mom shouldn’t have known. As weird as that sounds, it was just embarrassing to know that my mother was privy to what had happened to me.20

But the story doesn’t end there. It never does. How could it? The bastard that did it was never caught. I found out soon after this happened that he’s responsible for quite a few escapades such as this. I was his seventeenth victim, hence the little arm art he’d given me near the end; but also his only survivor. I’m not sure if that should be comforting or not. I guess it depends on how you look at it. I don’t really see myself as lucky, even though I know that I should. I mean, I lived through it. I was released from the hospital as soon as I was all healed up, and I had a ton of support from my family. But after something like that… even at ten, I just wanted to curl up into a small hole and die. Most people see me as fortunate, considering none of his other victims were as fortunate as I was. But personally, I think it’s kind of setting me up for future events. 21

Shorthand version: I’m fucked.22

And don’t worry; I’m not going to bore you with the whole ‘recovery’ deal. I’m sure you’ve read all about it in the papers. Hell, it’s still in the papers today. Nah, I recovered. End of story. No big inspirational bit to it, a surgery fixed the stab wound, stitches fixed the rest. The end. Simple as that.23

As you can probably imagine, the whole ordeal kind of fucked with my head. I mean, sure, it’s kind of a stereotype. But, at ten years old and being the only survivor of a serial rapist and murderer… I had to deal with reporters, doctors, news broadcasters, support group counselors and police officers, when I just wanted to be left alone. I’ve tried to kill myself enough times to know that there really is no effective way to commit suicide. I’ve tried everything but chucking a toaster into the bathtub. I’ve done my fair share in hospitals. 24

Unknowingly, I’ve become the poster child for what could happen to a rape victim. I cut, I smoke weed, only because I’m too much of a pussy to do anything heavier than alcohol and THC. It’s mostly because, as much as people try not to see what happened to me, they still do. When they look at me, they never see who I am now. They just see that scared ten year old girl, plastered all over television screens and newspaper articles.25

They only see the victim.26

For serious, I could get arrested two days from now and the headlines would read, “SIDEWALK SLASHER’S ONLY SURVIVOR BROUGHT INTO POLICE CUSTODY.”27

I guess, in the grand scheme of things, that’s what really messed me up. I was trying to be a normal child and everyone was still treating me like I was made of glass. But that’s going to change. Being seventeen hasn’t exactly been a joyride… but it’s been fairly important for me. So important in fact, that a person from my past has decided to pay me a visit to make sure that I still have that little memento on my arm from seven years ago.28